In one of my ever more frequent moments of self-adulation, I gave in to ScientistMother’s apparently harmless interview offer. Why not, I thought — it is an easy way to produce a post. After all, what kind of questions could possibly be coming my way… “What is your favorite ice cream flavor ?”… “Do you think the name of the soccer player belongs on the back of his jersey ?”… “emacs or vi ?”…
Alas, the interviewer (a shrewd, career-minded reporter, eyeing a spot on some prime time investigative TV show) decided to go on the offensive, doubtless trying to land her big scoop by exposing to the public some yet unknown trait of my multi-faceted personality… I know these people, nothing is ever off limits when dealing with a celebrity…
Now I have to answer really sticky questions, each one fraught with danger; only my experience of consumed bullsh… I mean, blogger, can save me… Well, I say bring it on, young lady — my weapons will be my wit, my cowardice and my legendary lameness.

Update (11/18/2008): The bill has been withdrawn, ostensibly following widespread complaints among bloggers and the general public. In fairness, however, while I remain wary of any governmental attempt at “regulating” blogs, on examining the bill more closely and on reading some of the most authoritative legal opinions, it seems to me that the bill has been seriously misrepresented and its likely consequences vastly overstated, in both the Italian and international press. As it turns out, it would not have affected the overwhelming majority of blogs.
I felt that I owed at least a clarification.

As an amusing follow-up to my latest post on the relationship between blogs and “official” scientific journals, I have found out that in my country of birth some legislators actually think that regulating blogs is not only possible, but actually opportune (the story, in Italian, here). Indeed, parliament is about to discuss a bill that would require all bloggers to register with the Ministry of Communication (no, not with the Ministry of Blogging, silly…), and be thereafter subjected to the same regulations and restrictions as newspapers, television and other ‘regular’ news media. Failure to do so would result in prosecution of the blogger (yes, all blogs would be affected; even cooking, personal or porn blogs will be required to report news — any news I suppose — accurately and unbiasedly).Read more…